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Lord Broadbridge: My Lords, I do not think that the British particularly like planners or planning. They do not seem to have any great love for them. Following what the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, said, one casts one's mind back to the Great Fire of London. Sir Christopher Wren produced a great radial plan for rebuilding the city of London which would, I suppose, have made it rather like Paris, which the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, also mentioned. But the city fathers choked on that and immediately started rebuilding along the old dense and cluttered building lines. Today, they may be charming but they are clogged with pedestrians and transport.
To advert to more modern times, the County of London Plan conceived during 1944, and later, had the idea of green fingers of land coming radially into inner London. But the only one that was ever built--or perhaps a better word is laid out--was the Lea Valley Park and that runs parallel rather than inward.
Next, we had the Greater London Development Plan of the early 1970s which took several years to produce. In fact, it took so long that perhaps the reason that it was never deeply implemented was that it was out of date by the time it was published. It was certainly a monumental read.
To me, the two central issues of strategic planning for a strategic authority for London are traffic and transport and land use. I believe that those are seminal and I do not wish to return to a debate on the merits of the return to an old-style GLC which, by the time of its abolition, had a finger in every pie.
I start with traffic and transport. It is a fact that in broad terms, 60 per cent. of London transport, which is mainly cars and vans, brings in only 15 per cent. of the workforce. Measures must be taken to limit the use of the car and travellers must be persuaded to use the buses and the Underground. But the former are often very slow because of other traffic and the latter is chronically under-funded as at present constituted. Privatisation may relieve that but there are now too many unpremeditated hold-ups due to such matters as defective trains, signal failures and so on.
I am a dedicated tube user partly because I have no sense of direction. I get lost in large shops and, indeed, even in other people's houses. With the tube, I always know where I am and there is the opportunity to read the paper or a book, which is not possible in the car.
But it is necessary to move back from those particulars to the general. First and foremost, strategic planning of traffic and transport in London can be organised only on a global scale by an authority encompassing all London. If, for example, we want to build a freeway across London, at present up to 33 local authorities are involved. What happens is that Hackney may perhaps not want it so it pushes it on to neighbouring Islington which, in turn, shoves it on to neighbouring Camden. Colossal debate and delay follows. I have always been an admirer of the French in that aspect who seem just to hand down a route and it gets built. Hence the TGV network, or perhaps I should say "tay jay vay", has rapidly spread over much of the country, bringing immense savings in travelling time
Traffic and transport in London need a bird's eye view. Perhaps the only example is the red routes which have a director of transport, but his brief extends only to those routes. I know a little about them because the original pilot red route passed some 50 yards from my front door in the Republic of Islington. But that pilot was partly an abortion, intended to extend from Archway into the City--that is, north of the borough into the City. It had to stop prematurely at the Angel traffic lights because the further part was not an MoT Highway as classified but under local authority control, and Islington council was firmly against red routes. Strategic planning of traffic and transport by a strategic authority might have overcome that obstacle.
We all know that London is slowly clogging up with traffic and it is small consolation to know that average speeds in London are, I believe, 2.1 miles per hour faster than Paris. A red double-decker bus will carry 72 passengers, which is the equivalent of about 50 cars as the majority of cars are single-person occupied. Park-and-ride schemes have brought a little relief, but that is often spoilt by a disproportionately high charge being levied for the parking at fringe stations. Neither is British Rail financially a particularly economic way to travel. It is said that the tube is the most expensive transportation system in Europe. Certainly to travel a mile or two on the tube at £1.20 does not compare favourably with the present 60p. on a bus.
I turn now to land use. London is a big city because of its vast sprawling suburbs unlike, for example, a city like Sheffield which has a dense centre within which the Derbyshire dales are accessible practically within walking distance. In the same way as we have green belt for the countryside with its strategic planning and rules and regulations, we need a detailed strategically planned overview, perhaps an urban belt, for London.
At the highest level a body is needed to decide where developments may take place and what type they should be--for example, houses, shops, supermarkets, green space--and where alternatively regenerating existing stock should be paramount. "Ah", I hear some noble Lords say, "each local authority has an approved unitary plan". I should like to give noble Lords an example as to how effective one such plan may be. In the north of Islington there has been a large derelict site off the Holloway Road for many years. A leading name supermarket put in an application to build a superstore. That was turned down by the planning committee in that it contravened the unitary plan. But the proposal was hijacked by a meeting of the full council which, nonetheless, gave it the go-ahead. Appeals to the Secretary of State then gave it the thumbs down but all that involved residents in much anxiety, endless pressure group meetings, demonstrations and, no doubt, large legal fees. It was all wasted effort because we have ended up with a large derelict site with no agreed use,
Unitary plans have their undoubted uses but, in the end, are 33 jigsaw pieces--one for each local authority. They are drawn up largely to meet local needs and are far from being a strategic plan for London as a whole when assembled together. In a way, they are a series of ivory towers. The general land use of London may not be at all attuned to what a given borough thinks is best for its residents. There is of course a place for a unitary plan, but it should be developed after a general planning strategy for London has been evolved, not in isolation.
I return to my opening point. The British do not like authoritarian plans. Hence people protesting in tree-houses, which is rather old-hat now that "Swampy" has gone literally underground with his fellow Troglodytes. The originally brilliant previous Prime Minister failed in the end largely, I believe, because of her authoritarianism in a country where, for example, in many pubs there is a choice of jug or straight glass for drinking your beer out of. God forbid that the landlord should lay down one or the other.
We are historically a nation of amateurs and dilettantes. Yet a strategic authority would do so much good for London. The main problem is getting people to realise this. As Sir Hugh Casson observed, London is like a sock with holes in it. But, he said, to mend it we need the best quality darning thread and the best needlework for, unlike an old sock, the one thing that we cannot do with London is throw it away.
Lord Newall: My Lords, I have no wish this afternoon to go into the whys and wherefores of a possible strategic authority as most noble Lords have done. However, I feel that it is necessary to point out some of what is successful in London at present, in addition to some of those activities already mentioned, and to establish where we are coming from. I wish to talk a little about the City of London. After all, the City co-existed with the LCC and the GLC for many years and there were no problems then and, indeed, no problems are foreseen in the future. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to mention some of the City's work, which is totally inseparable from that of the Lord Mayor himself whom many see as performing purely a ceremonial role, which is untrue.
It may surprise some noble Lords to know that the City Corporation predates Parliament. It is very different from the boroughs, which of course are statutory creations. The corporation's duties and powers rest on its position as a common law corporation. The constitution is unique, and I should declare an interest in that I am a member of a livery company in the City. The City Corporation's rights are derived from prescription, custom, charters and Acts of Parliament. The Court of Common Council exercises the functions of a local authority and a police authority.
Transport is of course a very important factor. It is very important for the whole of London, and that is one of the reasons why something has to be done. Moreover,
Perhaps I may draw on a little experience relating to the City Disputes Panel. At the time of some earlier decisions there was nothing like it. In April 1484, in the reign of Richard III, there was an enormous dispute between the Skinners Company and the Merchant Taylors Company as to who should have precedence. At that time, Mayor Billesden was asked to give a verdict. The verdict was that they should alternate between the 6th and 7th at every Easter but that they must give each other a dinner every year. Well, that has happened ever since 1484 with a few interruptions for wars, but that is where the expression "being at sixes and sevens" derives.
The City also provides arts facilities, markets, open spaces, port health services, housing, drug combating services and enormous charitable activities. It helps with the regeneration of inner London; tourism; it has a cross-river partnership; the Pool of London partnership; and a fringe partnership especially for the northern and eastern fringes of London. Some of those partnerships were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Sheppard. In all aspects, I am quite sure that the City will seek to work effectively with any strategic authority, or whatever comes about.
The Lord Mayor goes overseas quite a lot and acts as a roving ambassador not only for the City but for London and the United Kingdom as a whole. This is nearly always done in consultation with the Treasury, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the DTI, the Bank of England and many others. On his visits he is normally accompanied by business delegations. He opens a great many doors for industry and commerce. Shortly the Lord Mayor will go to Pakistan and India. This will tie in with the visit of "Britannia" and will help to celebrate the 50 years of independence of those countries. I think the Lord Mayor will assist in opening new business opportunities there.
It can only be beneficial to the United Kingdom to ensure that opportunities to promote the interests of this country overseas are maintained and if possible enhanced. The interface between any future strategic authority and the existing Lord Mayor should ensure that the role of the former adds to and complements the existing efforts.
As has been said by many, the City cannot always speak for the whole of London, important as it is. So whether what results is an enlarged partnership, a statutory body or something else, the two roles of the City and whatever emerges can work together and harmonise their efforts for the good of all people in each and every borough of this great city.
6.5 p.m.
6.15 p.m.
6.21 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, first of all, I wish to apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, and other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate for not being
present at the beginning of the debate because I was attending a conference at the Royal College of Physicians on the relationship between poverty and health. I have come from Regent's Park on a bicycle at some risk to life and limb, but I am here.The conference that I have just attended has some relevance to our topic, the need for a strategic authority for London. I suggest that there are problems and mechanisms which are associated with poverty and poor health which would benefit from a cross-borough perspective. Some of these problems are concentrated particularly in the inner London boroughs which have much higher levels of deprivation and its associated problems of homelessness, rough sleepers, alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution and high crime levels, and greater numbers of mentally-ill people living in the community. That section of the population makes higher demands on the National Health Service at primary and secondary levels but it also makes high demands on the social services, housing departments, crime prevention and criminal justice systems.
The people I am talking about are no respecters of borough boundaries. I think of Christopher Clunis, the mentally-ill patient who killed Jonathan Zito. He moved around from one borough to another and from one health authority to another and each one divested itself of responsibility. The authorities were not sure whether he was a social services responsibility or a health authority responsibility. Is it right that the 12 or so inner London boroughs should each have to cope separately with these social problems? I am aware that the inner London boroughs receive an augmented central government support grant because of their special socio-economic problems, but is that enough? Is it efficient to replicate the services 12 or more times over? Some boroughs are struggling--some would say all of them are--with these problems and sometimes fail altogether to provide help or sometimes provide help which is of too low a standard.
That is not merely a question of lack of financial resources but also of skilled people. It is not easy to find the right skills to cope with some of the more difficult people in our community. I suggest that a strategic authority could provide support and monitor the extent of and variations of these problems. If it had a good financial base, perhaps levied by a precept from each individual borough--as was the case with the GLC--staff, buildings and other facilities to deal with these problems could be located where they were most needed, regardless of the ability of the borough concerned to initiate them.
Of course health services as such are provided by the National Health Service. The needs of the population of each district health authority or commission--in London the health authorities are usually but not always coterminous with two or more adjacent boroughs--are theoretically determined by that authority and the required services purchased by the health authority from community and hospital trusts. That arrangement is good in principle but leaves much to be desired in practice. I do not intend to discuss that in this debate; that is for a health debate.
The role of the regional health authorities--the next higher tier--has been diminished and their number has been reduced, but they still provide an important monitoring role on the overall needs of their population, particularly with regard to the tertiary, more specialist, hospital services. It has always seemed illogical that London was split into four separate regional health authorities. Now they have been reduced to two--North Thames and South Thames--which is an improvement but the reach of these authorities goes far outside London itself and includes the Home Counties. There are historical reasons for that arrangement but these have largely changed. I think that if a strategic authority for London were established it should be matched--or could be matched, at least--by a regional health office which dealt with all London's health problems together. The Home Counties could possibly be joined on to their adjacent contiguous regions. London would thus have coterminous boundaries for monitoring its overall health and social needs.
It makes sense to consider bringing social and health services closer together as all health problems of course have social connotations. I favour much closer links at a lower level also between district health authorities and the social services departments of the boroughs they serve, at the same time as having the much greater accountability of the district health authorities to their local populations. That, of course, is a part of Labour's health policy.
When the Inner London Education Authority was disbanded, a dedicated and effective network of special educational services was taken apart and almost destroyed. Some of it has been put back together again but it is patchy. Schools and other centres for blind, deaf, physically, mentally and emotionally handicapped children are often not viable if they are based on the population of a single borough. Attempts to return statemented children--that is, children with problems--back to mainstream education because some of the special schools have had to be closed may have been the right policy for some of these children but for others it has been found to be inappropriate. Some schools now have to contain disruptive children because the out of school units which were available to refer the children have now been closed. Those special schools were expensive to run, and transport which sometimes involved crossing borough boundaries was not cheap either; but the service was widely admired by visitors from all over the world and much appreciated by the children and parents. A strategic authority would be able to identify how many special schools and centres were needed. Often only one for blind and deaf children is required for several boroughs.
Other noble Lords have talked about transport; I shall not follow down that road. However, I shall refer briefly to the London Ambulance Service. It was once London's pride. I do not refer simply to the Daimler ambulances which were ordered in 1946 so that ordinary citizens should have the best. Although the Daimler ambulances only did seven miles to the gallon, they clocked up half a million miles of service before being sold, some to families who have used them since as
mobile homes. Since transfer to a trust, there has been a series of hiccups in the London Ambulance Service due to inadequate management and an unwise premature switch to communication and control technology which failed dismally on a number of occasions. I suggest that it would be far better under an accountable elected authority.Others have spoken about the Metropolitan Police. It seems logical to bring them under an all-London authority rather than central government. While I have always been well served by London police, I believe that it would serve London's citizens better if its senior officers were accountable to an elected local body rather than to the Home Secretary.
I believe that a new, slimmed down elected strategic body should be created, with a limited number of functions but with the clout and financial basis to carry out those functions effectively.
6.31 p.m.
The Earl of Stockton: My Lords, I must apologise to the House and the noble Earl for my somewhat tardy arrival in your Lordships' House this afternoon. I fear that I am sometimes becoming known as "the late Lord Stockton".
While welcoming the broad thrust of the ideas that have been outlined in the debate, I share the views of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, and the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, about the undesirability of over-egging this particular pudding. However, I wish to raise some issues about the relationship between any new authority, ministry, or whatever solution, and the existing local authorities in the boroughs and the City of London. Perhaps at this point I should declare an interest. I am a member of the court of two of the livery companies in the City.
In looking at the future of a government for London I think that we should look equally carefully at the past. We all know that unlike many other cities that have been planned or rebuilt with a single vision, London started out as a collection of two towns either side of the downstream ford across the river and a series of villages and hamlets that grew up alongside the Thames, as well as in the higher and more salubrious ground to the north and south of the marshy basin that is central London.
Each of these communities has retained and developed an identity that transcends the mere administrative boundaries that have been imposed over the years. If noble Lords were to ask a New Yorker where he is from, he will reply, "New York". If one asks a Londoner he will say Stepney or Poplar, Highgate or Clerkenwell, Chelsea or Dollis Hill. A few years ago I was in Israel, sitting on a bus, and tried to strike up a conversation with my elderly neighbour. My Hebrew is, I fear, very limited and was clearly not getting through, so I tried in German, French and Spanish to no avail. Finally, I said very slowly and clearly, "Have you ever been to London?", and was rewarded with a nod. I asked, "Do you like London?" to which he replied, "No, I hate the bleeding place. I was town clerk of Shoreditch for 15 years".
As the founding chairman of the Central London Training and Enterprise Council, and one-time representative of London on the Secretary of State's consultative body, the TEC National Council, I endorse the need for more cohesion in the decision-making process, in particular for things like education and employment. It would be appropriate at this juncture to recognise the remarkable efforts that have been put into this work by my noble friend Lord Sheppard as the first chairman of London First.
However, there is a risk that in looking at the macro picture of London, we lose sight of the role and importance of the very local community. Like many, I have always lived in the same neighbourhood--in my case within less than a mile of Victoria--have tended to use the same shops, market, and restaurants, and have an abysmal ignorance of the bus routes outside the half a dozen that I use. In developing the strategic picture, we must recall that it will work only if it is made up of a mosaic of neighbourhoods.
Another area of concern is the representation of London abroad and in the rest of the country--a role carried out for centuries by the Lord Mayor of London. That has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Newall. I suspect that few Londoners see anything of the work of the mayoralty beyond the Lord Mayor's Show and are unaware of his function as ambassador abroad, which needs to be understood so that the potential for friction between him and any new authority, mayor or leader (or whatever we call him) is to be avoided.
The economic importance of the City is now widely appreciated as is the fact that the financial sector operates outside the boundaries of the square mile. In 1995 the net overseas earnings of this sector exceeded £20 billion. The fact that the Lord Mayor is not a party politician but the head of an authority which has represented the commercial heart of this country for 800 years has a much greater impact abroad than at home.
I do not think that Londoners want to be represented by an expensive "supermayor" any more than they voted to be represented by the honourable Member for Brent East in another place. And in any event the Lord Mayor does the ceremonial job for the whole of London very satisfactorily and at absolutely no cost to the boroughs or the majority of the people of London.
The Lord Mayor and the Corporation of London form a unique institution. There is no other local authority like it, but before we throw it out in the current bizarre spirit of constitutional change for change's sake, let us examine the reasons behind the City of London's governance. Curiously, I should have thought that it would be more to the taste of noble Lords opposite than it would appear. The Court of Common Council, and the Court of Aldermen have always been elected by the residents in the wards that go to make up the square mile, and the sheriffs, the Lord Mayor and a number of other officers of the Corporation by the members of the 100 livery companies.
The first of those companies emerged during the Middle Ages as combinations of people engaged in the same trade in order to protect their livelihood, ensure
proper working practices and maintain quality of product and consumer protection as well as standards of training, commercial propriety and ethical practice. The trades of the guild built and funded schools, many of which survive to this day; constructed alms-houses and set an example of charity and care that is still significant in the modern welfare state although it pre-dates it by some 600 years. In many ways the constitution of the City is a forerunner of that of the Labour Party, with representation elected by both the citizens and what was in effect the first trades council.I am sure that noble Lords will agree with me that while the future government of London must reflect the demands and the needs of the next 100 years, it is worth bearing in mind that old Yankee maxim, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
It has been an interesting debate, as wide-ranging as London itself, and reflecting as many concerns as there are Londoners. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, for providing your Lordships' House with the opportunity to discuss the future of what is after all the nation's capital city.
6.38 p.m.
The Earl of Clancarty: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for initiating this important debate. In an article in the Independent on Sunday on 11th February 1996, Neal Ascherson says,
- "To be a city requires more than houses and people. It needs an ... 'imagined community', or the conviction that other inhabitants in distant streets, whom one will never meet or see, share elements of a common culture and react to events as one would react oneself. Looking at London and Londoners, it is not easy to have faith in that sense of cohesion ... London can seem like a predicament rather than a place".
A city needs to hear its own voice; and as a Londoner myself I want to hear the voice of the city. Yet I cannot assume what this voice sounds like, as I cannot assume what together we would mean by the term "common culture", or predict and prescribe what form any "cohesion" might take. Yet I believe that individual people, in hearing the voice of the city, would more clearly hear their own voices; then suddenly finding that they themselves are joining in a conversation.
An individual person, a group of people, a city, a nation: a multitude of conversations together, working at and between many levels (the true definition, I believe, of government), building into a network of primarily cultural connections.
The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, approvingly quotes the famous dictum of the film director, Jean-Luc Godard: "Not the just ideas, just ideas".
The whole question which underlies this debate is the relationship between scale and power. A German artist, Leif Liebenschutz, who lives in London, has suggested to me that the lack of London's awareness of its own culture in relationship to that of other city cultures (including, most importantly, its own) is its culture. For power is still maintained, filling the vacuum caused by the absence of these conversations, whilst the blanket-like "grand plan" of the free market subsumes culture, replacing it with the static common culture of consensus.
But a multitude of conversations--this other possibility--is always in flux; it is dynamic and unpredictable in form. I hear bits of conversations, but I am not aware of a multitude of them. By the standards of most other European cities, London is a remarkably multi-cultural city; yet there is no real connection between the different parts, or cultural regions.
Any culture in isolation, whatever level we might identify it with--a person, a group of people, a city, or others--is not an independent culture: it is unable to contribute to a conversation. It remains hardly a culture, for culture is created through these conversations, by reaching out and making connections, transforming itself and others in the process. The reverse is also true. London cannot even talk to other cities in the United Kingdom, let alone abroad. Yet a city will be able to participate in conversations with other cities or regions, and with other levels, only if they also have a significant political and financial autonomy, creating at a larger scale a network of regions, a city-state culture.
- "A disconnected city is a provincial city"--
and I believe that that is so, irrespective of the commercial might that a city has. In London, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, the emphasis lies in the preservation of cultural experience--even, or perhaps particularly, of culture which is brand new, or at least newly packaged, since the prevailing ideology, that of the economy, sees culture primarily as product. So many artistic projects, to take that as an example, despite their seeming potential, are treated in that way--bought, sold (perhaps), and then are gone: they appear, to disappear.
We live not in a direct culture but a deferred one. We wish to create culture rather than be controlled by a heritage of power. That is why the United Kingdom has a Department of National Heritage and not, as it should have, a "Ministry for Culture".
There is a sense in which all people are in government, not in terms of the vote every few years, since there is now a feeling in the air that that may in the end be only a small part of what government might become, but because of the growing identification between culture and government. Certain voices and projects are in their own way, as much as, for example, the road protests in the West Country and elsewhere, direct actions which deliberately circumvent the power of Westminster in order to make a connection with others. In some ways the lobbying aspect of the road protestors, although clearly important, is their least interesting aspect. More significantly, they are a form of creative self-government, or an attempt towards the possibility of government.
In order to come to meet these attempts, there needs to take place an extension of government, which is quite different from what is variously called dispersal, spread or devolution. Many people and groups of people have to be directly involved in governmental decision-making and, in particular, people outside the orbit of mainstream party politics.
I agree very much with the idea of a single London government--and as part of a deeper, wider and more uncertain political network. I take issue with the use of both the terms "authority" and "strategic"--"strategic" because that already implies a prescribing of a common culture; "authority" because, once prescribed, that culture is maintained or preserved. I prefer the idea of an assembly, which, at its most real, might become a physical manifestation of the imagined community, an uncertain meeting between all levels of government, not a characteristic of an assumed common culture, but government as an event--a multitude of conversations.
6.45 p.m.
Viscount Chelmsford: My Lords, I, too, am a Londoner: I have lived here continuously since 1958. In "living" I include weekends. I enjoy living in London, but there are pluses and minuses in doing so. If you work in London, the absence of the daily commute is a real plus. So, too, is the availability of well-stocked stores and restaurants from every country in the world. A summer evening in London is still a joy; so, too, is a walk along the Thames towpath. Looking back, I remember the Clean Air Act, which got rid of the smog in the late 1950s and meant that, instead of net curtains turning yellow, they went slowly brown and thereafter, if not washed, turned black.
That brings me to a recital of the minuses in London life. There is still a lot of pollution in the London air. Traffic makes it worse. And traffic which is stationary due to congestion makes it lethal. Ten years ago London was relatively quiet. Today, every police car, fire engine and ambulance seems not only to be fitted with the loudest possible bell and siren but to be in competition with New York to see which city can make most noise most often. You can often tell which district you are in simply by the amount of litter in the streets, and while bus services seem to be improving, to be sure of arrival on time you need to add another 15 minutes if you travel on the Underground.
It is time for me to declare my interests. I am a member of the all-party Lords London Group. I propose to talk about transport. I believe in the need for a champion for London to add the weight necessary--not just to improve the minuses which affect us, the residents, but also to ensure that London remains attractive to visitors. A quarter of a million people commute daily into the City; 7 million tourists visit it annually; and 90 per cent. of all those people use public transport. Will that continue with a deteriorating Underground and congested roads? What is the future for UK invisibles if our clients avoid the City of London?
We need a better London strategy for transport. We need someone to shout our wares: to remind the nation of the importance of the City, to wake people up to the part that London plays in the fortunes of the rest of the nation and to do something about the motor car in London. We need a "personality"--let us call him "governor", so that we do not confuse him with the Lord Mayor of London. Let us give him a think-tank, but avoid adding a third layer to London's governance.
I am president of ITS Focus. ITS stands for intelligent transport systems. Such systems pass messages to and from moving vehicles. Let me offer examples. Some noble Lords will be familiar with the variable message signs which tell people that the M.25 is blocked or with the camera that records the number plate when motorists break the speed limit in the suburbs. They may know about Scoot, the world-beating traffic light system which maximises London's traffic flow. They may also have heard, as my noble friend mentioned earlier, about regional traffic authorities. There is one in Scotland called Scotia and another in what is known as the Birmingham envelope. They exist as a result of the existence of intelligent transport systems.
There are some intelligent systems of which noble Lords may not know, either because they do not show up or because no one has yet ordered them. It is possible to obtain in-car systems using maps, audio, or both, to direct people on their route. The service tells them, while they are still in the car, which car parks still have spaces. A multi-modal trip planner is emerging to encourage people to use public transport where it is bound to be quicker. There are already information systems that tell people at a bus stop when the next bus will arrive. London Transport's Stopwatch indicators already do that on some routes. But the system can be extended; it is possible to find out on your PC before you venture out into the rain. Systems also exist which stop over-height vehicles. I can tell my noble friend Lady Brigstock of a documented case of a Czech driver about to enter a Swiss tunnel who was stopped by an intelligent transport system before he hit the tunnel. He was removed and fined heavily. So they are around and they can be used.
The bus uses road space at least 20 times as efficiently as a private car on average and could do even better if we worked at it. Use of contactless smart cards will mean no more waiting to board the bus while the person in front searches for the right change. Buses can travel down red routes, receiving automatic priority at traffic lights. As for cars, they can probably be charged for entering each section of London.
Surely, the combination of all those measures ought to improve traffic speeds, reduce congestion and hence reduce pollution, make public transport more attractive and allow the emergency services to reach destinations faster and with less noise. So why is that not happening? To be fair, some of it is. But in my view it is happening in an unco-ordinated way and without that focus on London's needs which someone whose sole responsibility is to London would bring.
The most well known transport need for which such a person would be fighting is capital to maintain and enhance London Underground. The City of London would ballot City firms for the right to raise capital for the improvement of London's rail and Underground network if it had any confidence that the Treasury would leave that ring-fenced for London's transport needs. I may say that France and Germany already raise money specially for transport alone.
But there are other less well known improvements which would also attract a sharper focus from a champion. I mentioned some of the improvements to
make buses more acceptable. There are five or six different schemes at the moment in differing stages of progress, for completion at different dates between now and, say, 2005. I am convinced that, if those were properly co-ordinated for a common launch, they would achieve a far greater effect than they would do piecemeal.Let us not forget what was, in my view, a GLC triumph. It cut Underground fares by nearly half and promptly increased its usage significantly. The problem was that the service was not good enough to hold the new traffic and so the effort was eventually wasted. I believe that buses, which are already improved through better routing, can improve services further through their new systems and can then hold their increased passenger levels.
Cameras are exciting. Not only have speed cameras cut the accident rate in the 40 mile an hour suburbs by 30 per cent. or more, but in the City of London--a single authority with its own police force--public cameras and private security cameras are now networked together and cover the whole area, street by street. The so-called "ring of steel" is said to be responsible for the reduction in crime, while the camera network has clearly helped the increased rates of conviction. Both those initiatives come from a single authority with the power to act for itself. That seems to me good evidence for what can be done by one authority acting for London.
Finally, I turn to what I consider to be the most important matter of all. I submit that there is a need to charge private vehicles variable rates depending on the part of London in which they wish to travel. Smaller cities already do so. For example, Oslo raises £60 million per annum based on £1 per car day. Edinburgh contemplates doing the same to raise some £50 million. Of course, London is much larger. The Department of Transport says that that is why charging will not work and that its consultant confirms it. It adds that the public will not accept congestion charging. Therefore such a policy is unenforceable.
I disagree on both counts. The executive summary of the MVA consultancy report, referring to charging a vehicle for crossing a boundary, states that,
- "the necessary technology for a system which would meet the needs of London is not yet proven, though in live use elsewhere".
The DoT took that as a good reason not to proceed, but I suggest that a London-only authority might at least have researched that further and perhaps even sanctioned a small technical pilot scheme based on intelligent communications and a dummy accounting system. Incidentally, I should add that electronic car number plates would solve a great number of problems. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Sheppard will have some of those things considered by his partnerships with London Pride.
As to public acceptance, I and thousands of others who live in London are accustomed to paying an annual levy for the privilege of parking our cars outside our front doors or, indeed, as near to them as we can get. We are properly hounded by ever more efficiently networked traffic wardens, by clamping units and, in
Westminster, by lorries which remove our cars when we transgress. I have not yet heard of riots in the streets because of those law enforcers. It is true that electronic tolling is still relatively unknown and some citizens would certainly look for ways to beat the system. But I do not see enough evidence of experimentation, and the current policy, which seems to rely on motorists giving up if the congestion gets too bad, is both a policy of despair and environmentally daft.I have seen university papers which argue about whether the cost to the whole of the UK from congestion--based solely on time of travel and thus excluding the cost to our health and the environment--is £20 billion or £10 billion per annum. Separately, I have seen the CBI reported to have estimated £15 billion. Even accepting the £10 billion lower figure, there are massive potential benefits to be obtained from reducing congestion, increasing travel by public transport and ensuring that the City of London remains pre-eminent, not least because it has excellent communications of every type, including road and rail.
I maintain that there is a better chance of such an achievement with a champion for London.
6.56 p.m.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I too thank the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, for introducing the debate and the All-Party Group on London, which is a very welcome move, as also for providing the opportunity for two quite different and excellent maiden speeches. The noble Earl's introduction to the debate represented the strand of intelligent, non-party political concern which characterises the debate right across London at the point we have now reached.
There seems to be widespread consensus that something must be done. I differ from the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, in that I believe that the public thinks that London is broken and does need fixing. Certainly, the latest opinion poll which I have seen, conducted by MORI toward the end of last year, suggested that about the same proportion of people as in 1986 felt that we needed a single authority and that that authority should be elected; but that now, one in two residents of London says that London has become worse since 1986.
The noble Earl and my noble friend Lord Tope, referred to the functions of an authority. In progressing this debate, I hope we can show that we have learnt from the recent reorganisation of local government that function and structure cannot be separated. The committee of your Lordships' House on central and local government relations, touching on these matters emphasised the need for fund-raising powers for any level of government to be effective. That too is not an issue that one can set aside. It has to be addressed quite squarely.
It is right also not to be diverted by boundary issues. I agree with the noble Earl that London is not a self-contained region. But, then, nowhere in our country is self-contained and, indeed, Britain is not self-contained and apart from the rest of Europe.
I do not believe that what we have now is the best for London, either for business or its residents. I happen to believe that what is best for business is best for its residents and vice versa. For instance, of the present authorities, the Government Office for London has as its first objective to:
- "meet operational requirements of departments and ministers".
I quoted from its annual report. That is not a criticism of the efforts of the officials there. But I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, when he spoke about the Cabinet subcommittee and the advisory panel, that too many ministers tend to spoil the broth.
London Pride has done fine work and continues to do so. I was interested in the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Sheppard of Didgemere, that its members tend to find bases for agreement. I suggest that that may be because London Pride has very little executive power. For eight years I chaired one of the committees formed after the abolition of the GLC--the London Planning Advisory Committee. That committee has no executive power, though it works better than anyone had any right to believe it would when it was established as a rather poor substitute for a proper strategic planning authority for London. I acknowledge the contribution of your Lordships' House in ensuring that it was formed; but the question must be asked whether having only advisory powers or the right to discuss, instigate, debate and so forth, means that there can be more consensus because the issues are easier to face. Perhaps if London Pride had more powers, reaching decisions might be a little more difficult.
When I chaired LPAC one of my impressions was that one of its deficiencies was that it was no one's first priority. Its members were not directly elected and, though they worked hard--we all did--and took issues forward in an appropriate way, it was not their first responsibility.
Anxiety has been expressed this evening about NIMBYism leading to stagnation: about the problems of elected representatives looking to their constituencies. My noble friend Lord Tope spoke of the use of different electoral systems--these Benches would advocate multi-member constituencies elected on a proportional representation basis. Wider constituencies mean that there would be a wider geographical base. I do not believe that problems of NIMBYism--of being concerned with one's local parish pump--should deter us from going forward to a London-wide authority. Every level of government has to deal with issues of how its members reconcile their local interests with the interests of the whole authority; a parochial point of view does not preclude strategy.
We have been talking--rightly so--about government at the right level, not about the duplication of functions. We have heard about taking powers from Whitehall and Westminster, notably in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton of Eggardon. It is quite impertinent of Westminster and Whitehall to claim that London strategy is theirs and theirs alone. We need a clear and well understood home for strategic responsibility, just as we need a home for the local responsibility--I include in that neighbourhoods and parishes.
We also need a centre for expertise. The GLC--like my noble friend, I was not an advocate of keeping it in the form in which it was--provided a centre for expertise. To some extent that has been lost. The London Research Centre does good work but it keeps going by marketing itself to private as well as public sectors and that must affect its planning and the work that it carries out.
I am by no means suggesting that we should lose what we have learnt since 1986. I was one of the early members of London First and felt that watching the coming together of representatives of local government and business--and of the voluntary sector, which has not been much mentioned tonight and does not have centre stage to quite the extent that business does--was a fascinating process. Each was learning of the constraints, aspirations and frustrations that the other suffered and that is something of which we must not lose sight. Watching and listening to captains of industry say, "That is a good idea. Let us take a decision. Let us do it now"; and leaders of local government saying, "That is a good idea. Let us go out and consult and we will come back in six months", enabled us to reconcile those two approaches and we must hold on to that.
But those bodies are not accountable. I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Sheppard of Didgemere, and do not believe that changing those arrangements would mean losing the partnerships that had been built. A new authority should not be a stranglehold on partnerships. Indeed, the value of partnerships is widely accepted right across government.
We heard about the need for a voice for London. There is indeed a vacuum in that regard. But I am not one of those who believes in the magic of a mayor; I particularly do not believe that we can solve the problems of democracy by substituting personality politics. Instead, we must make democracy work better. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, talked of a mayoralty being a recipe for frustration because expectations could not be fulfilled. Certainly the financial constraints on a mayor must be an issue. A mayor with an adequate budget would be quite a challenge to central government and a mayor without an adequate budget would be a puppet. Neither is likely to be the right solution.
I was fascinated to read recently a report of a successful mayor in San Diego. The article said:
- "[She] isn't rate-capped from far away. The thought of a Whitehall (or Washington) letting her raise only 15 or 20 per cent. of the cash she spends on the priorities she chooses would be laughed into [the] Bay".
The article also asked what it described as,
- "some ... questions for closer to home".
- "Will Labour's new London mayor be able to show Mr. Blunkett the door?".
The article was not specifically aimed at Mr. Blunkett; it was any Government Minister.
It may have taken a couple of hours in this debate for divisions to appear, but there is a wide and ever-growing consensus about the need for a strategic London authority, though I hope we will all be able to continue to move on in our thinking in response to the debate.
I echo my noble friend Lord Tope. The debate needs to be on the "how"; to build on the broad agreement as to "what"; to bring together the voluntary sector, religious and community leaders, commuters and so forth as well as local government, industry and business. If I refer to a constitutional convention it may provoke a knee-jerk reaction among some noble Lords; it is not intended to do that. The work in Scotland was not invalidated by what happened later. That might be a model to be considered as to how we move forward. I should like to see some mechanism for bringing all those exciting thoughts together with a view to an effective outcome. It is vital that London's government is underpinned by consensus and by democracy.
7.8 p.m.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, on initiating this debate; for his clear and excellent introduction to our discussion; and for the excellent work that he has done on the House of Lords All-Party London Group, of which I am a member though I joined it too late in the day to have any influence on the excellent document the group produced. Perhaps I can say also that there is a companion volume produced by the Labour Party, A Voice for London, which has had less publicity this afternoon but which also makes an interesting contribution to the debate. I congratulate also the two maiden speakers this afternoon--the noble Lords, Lord Hankey and Lord Tweedsmuir--for their important contributions to our discussion.
London is an exciting city. One of the challenges we face is to make local government exciting and relevant to the people of this country. Many people outside local government seem to think it is rather dull. I have been a councillor and do not believe it to be dull. But the way in which we look at the future of our capital city can make the government of London seem exciting; it can make it more interesting and relevant to the people of London. That is one of the challenges.
I was not happy to hear the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, say that in his view some of the problems of London were insoluble. That is a counsel of despair. The noble Lord quoted Haussmann in Paris. I took the trouble to find out a little more about Haussmann. I do not want to embarrass the noble Lord. I assume that he knows more about Haussmann than most people, as he quoted him. Haussmann was summoned to Paris by the Emperor Louis Napoleon in 1853 because of his abilities and because of his political loyalty. One of the objectives given to Haussmann by the Emperor was,
- "to establish a secure seat of government by facilitating the suppression of collective violence in the streets".
I am not sure whether that model is appropriate for our city!
I take issue with the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, who held up the City of London structure of government as a model on which the Labour Party should be keen and which might interest us in looking at the future of London as a whole. There is not time to go into detail on the City of London, but I do not think its democratic structures are quite up to the standards that we would
wish to see. Perhaps no democracy is better than false democracy. But there we are. We have to leave it at that point.I was delighted to see that a majority of those who spoke in the debate supported some form of strategic authority for London. Only three noble Lords said that they were fundamentally against the idea. However, I do not put the noble Lord, Lord Sheppard of Didgemere, who has made an important contribution in his work for London First, in the "against" category because he supports the idea of an elected governor. Although I do not like the phrase "elected governor", the noble Lord supports the idea, and so I put him in the "in-between" category.
When the Bill to abolish the GLC was going through Parliament, I remember watching with excitement what this House would do regarding important amendments to that piece of legislation. However, that is history, as is the fact that in 1963, under the Local Government Act, the Conservative Government abolished the LCC and created the GLC, in order, some of us believed, to facilitate a Conservative majority at County Hall. In a democracy we should accept that there should be important and power-elected bodies other than the House of Commons. It is not unhealthy if there is tension between democratically elected bodies. It is a sign of a healthy democracy that there might on occasions be different views. The wish to suppress such views is a sign of an unhealthy state of affairs.
Why do we need some form of strategic body for London? We are the only capital city of any comparably sized country in the western world that does not have a strategic authority to speak for it and its people. It is wrong to suggest that somehow we can do better without such a body when all other major cities in democratic countries have such bodies. We surely need some voice to speak for Londoners and to represent London not only in this country--to speak out for London vis-a-vis Whitehall, whatever shade of government there is there--but in Europe and the wider world. We need such a voice to link the people of London with business, the voluntary sector and public bodies. Surely that is a worthwhile aim in itself. It is therefore no wonder that 75 per cent. of Londoners when asked--I have no reason to think that the question was not properly or honestly asked--support such a body and that even 68 per cent. of Conservative voters--they were Conservative at the time the question was asked but perhaps there are fewer now--also supported having a strategic body. The business world overwhelmingly appears to want such a body, as does the voluntary sector.
At the moment we have a large number of bodies operating London-wide. Some such as LPAC, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, are effective, despite earlier predictions, but lack powers. Some of these bodies operate largely in secret. It is not proper for us to suggest that individual borough councillors, worthy people though they are, can really speak for the whole of London. That is not a reasonable proposition. I do not think it is reasonable to say that the Secretary of State, who may occasionally be a Londoner--the next
one may well be but the present one is not--is the appropriate person to speak for London. What we need is to have some form of structure which can at least attempt to tackle at a strategic level the many problems of London.I say most emphatically that a Labour Government would not recreate the GLC. We have in mind a small body--the staff might number no more than a few hundred--to do strategic work for London. It would be nothing large and there is an absolute commitment that we would not recreate the GLC. Furthermore, there is no intention that the work of such a strategic body would detract or subtract from the work of London boroughs. It would have strategic functions, including the oversight of certain other agencies which currently work in the capital.
Many contributors to the debate have gone through the topics which would be the responsibility of a strategic body. I shall not go through them all but I would mention: developing an overall economic strategy, linking business, the voluntary sector and public authorities; attracting funds for investment from the private sector, including those needed for infrastructure; land use planning and environmental protection improvement; transport co-ordination, to which many noble Lords referred; community safety, including the police, on which my noble friend Lady Hilton spoke so clearly and from deep experience; the arts, to which my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney referred; and the wider health needs of London, which were dealt with by my noble friend Lord Rea. Those and some others would represent the agenda of a strategic body. They would not be operationally handled by such a body, so the references that were made to the GLC dealing with housing improvements, and so on, before it got rid of its housing stock are simply not relevant to the type of body that we are discussing.
I turn briefly to the question of money. In 1991 the London Boroughs Association estimated that abolition of the GLC had led to savings of £100 million. It is perfectly clear that since then the expenditure on London through the different bodies that exist, particularly the Government Office for London, has meant that the savings have been eroded and that there has in fact been increased expenditure. Perhaps I may elaborate a little on that. In 1995-96 the Government Office for London had a budget of £1.06 billion. Some of that was clearly not an overall London expenditure. However, it has been estimated that some £220 million represented London-wide revenue spending.
In addition, GOL had some capital money. It has been estimated that at least £170 million has been spent in cross-borough programmes. We are talking about an existing expenditure of £390 million plus the operating costs of the Government Office for London, which are not inconsiderable as that body has grown. It is our firm commitment in the Labour Party that a strategic London authority would represent no increase in spending but would use existing money already allocated to London as part of its strategic functions. That answers many of the concerns that have been expressed about such a
body. It would be small, it would be strategic and it would not impose any additional financial burdens. It would use existing money.I turn briefly to the constitutional side of the issue. It would be right to consider an area probably the same size as the old GLC. Only in that respect would the body resemble the GLC. If we wanted to look at which sized body would be the most appropriate, there would be a long period of time for consultation procedures. It is not feasible to consider from square one what the boundaries should be. We might manage it, but it would take a long time. It makes sense to say that we should use the old GLC boundaries as a starting point. As one speaker said, London attracts people who travel long distances every day. London's problems extend beyond the GLC's boundaries. It makes sense to have a starting point and the old GLC boundaries would be a reasonable one. It also makes sense to consult the people of London on this point; and that the Labour Party will do.
The question of an elected mayor is an option--preferably, I would suggest, an elected mayor with executive powers. That still has to be thought about, and the noble Lord, Lord Dahrendorf, spoke eloquently in favour of that idea. I have already referred to the London Pride idea of a directly-elected governor with a small supporting office.
The people of London deserve and need a voice on the national and international stage; an organisation and authority which, in a strategic sense, can act on behalf of the people of London and do for London what is not being done properly at the moment. London deserves that.
7.20 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, like all other noble Lords, I would like to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, on initiating this debate and on the very clear and concise way in which he has made his points.
His extremely able chairmanship of the House of Lords All-Party London Group, of which I am glad to be a member, must have contributed substantially to the content of many of the excellent speeches we have heard today. As the noble Earl told us, the very helpful paper, The Question of a Strategic Authority For London, was produced by the group and apart from that, the noble Earl has managed to bring an excellent array of speakers to inform all of those privileged enough to attend the meetings.
My noble friend Lord Ferrers is sorry that, due to ministerial duties in South Africa, he cannot be here today. However, I know that when he reads the debate he will want to join with me in congratulating the two maiden speakers, the noble Lords, Lord Tweedsmuir and Lord Hankey, on their valuable contributions. Every cloud has a silver lining and his regrets are my pleasure as I am glad to have had the opportunity of listening to this excellent debate and it is really a privilege for me to be able to wind up.
Like many noble Lords who have spoken today, I was born, educated, conducted my business and political careers in London and have always lived here. With no
disrespect to whatever may be any of your Lordships' own favourite cities, I consider London to be the greatest city in the world.I was interested to hear that the noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, loves London; that my noble friend Lord Sheppard has a passion for London; the noble Lords, Lord Tweedsmuir and Lord Dubs, love London. I have no intention of singing "Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner", but those are my sentiments. I may very well invite the other noble Lords who have said those wonderful things about London to join me tomorrow for a little sing-song.
Some of your Lordships may know that I was for three years the chairman of the Greater London Area Conservatives, having previously served for three years as joint treasurer. In those six years I was in constant touch with many London MPs, but not the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, because in those days and now my honourable friend John Bowis is the Member for Battersea. I met London MPs, councillors and voluntary workers and I believe that I can speak with some authority on what a very large body of Londoners think about and want from their local government.
The noble Earl, Lord Carnarvon, said that he visited 19 boroughs. I visited 32 continually and 84 constituencies continually, chatting all the time. I believe that I have a view. Most people told me that what they do not want is a body like the GLC, which had much more comprehensive policies for Nicaragua and Northern Ireland than it ever had for housing in Hackney.
What they do want is what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister promised for London--a flourishing and successful capital city. I simply cannot agree with my noble friend Lord Plummer that London has somehow declined since the abolition of the GLC. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Marsh, reminded us, London is a true, world city. It is the enterprise capital of Europe. London accounts for 15 per cent. of Britain's GDP. It is the leading world financial centre with over 500 banks, more American banks than New York and more Japanese banks than Tokyo. There are 64 companies from the "Fortune 500" and 108 of Europe's top 500 companies are headquartered in London.
London's position at the heart of international business and trade means that the fortunes of the business community and the citizens of London are closely linked. Neither can afford to ignore the other. Yet for far too long their interests were presented as being fundamentally opposed to one another; their potential ignored in favour of narrow political ideology. Now we see a network of partnerships across the capital bringing together public, private and voluntary sectors and doing sterling work promoting and improving London. It is thanks to the policies of this Government that London has rediscovered the benefits of working together.
In the 1992 manifesto the Prime Minister promised, and we set up, a special Cabinet sub-committee on London to co-ordinate policy for London and to ensure that the capital's interests were heard right at the heart
of government. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, John Gummer, became Minister for London. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tope, that he really does have a commitment to the capital city, working right across it, even if he represents Suffolk.The pioneering private sector organisation London First was also established under the successful leadership of my noble friend Lord Sheppard of Didgemere. It now numbers some 200 of our most successful companies, working together to promote London and to improve the capital. In 1993 my right honourable friend Mr. John Gummer helped to establish London Pride and we have heard a lot about this from the noble Lord, Lord Sheppard. London Pride has succeeded in establishing a vision for London which crosses political divides. The London Pride partners now have direct discussions with Ministers from the Cabinet sub-committee on a range of issues in a grouping called the Joint London Advisory Panel. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is unfair to the tremendous efforts of this group. Many initiatives have been launched including work on transport, waste management and housing. Those are just a few examples.
We now have a Minster for Transport in London. At first it was my honourable friend Mr. Steven Norris and now my honourable friend Mr. John Bowis. Alongside the development of this new culture of achievement, there has also been an important shift in the focus of Government policies and programmes encouraging local initiative and local action rather than central direction and priority.
The Single Regeneration Budget, for example, has encouraged local people to identify the key issues in their area and to form partnerships between public and private sector players and to develop local solutions. This year alone the Single Regeneration Budget third round has committed £280 million to support 48 schemes, attracting a further £800 million of additional investment and will help to create 29,000 jobs over the lifetime of these schemes.
In many other areas partnerships are emerging to tackle specific problems. In regeneration, for example, partnerships in the east, west, north-west and central London and the Cross-River Partnership are already getting to work, the latter uniting the City, Westminster, Southwark and Lambeth, working together in a way that would never have happened in the days of the old GLC.
In the debate on the constitution in the other place last Thursday, the right honourable Leader of the Opposition, invited us to see what the absence of proper strategic planning has done. We waited with bated breath to hear what it was, but as so often happens, the right honourable gentleman immediately changed to another subject without explaining himself. I am reminded of the character in, I think, one of Lewis Carroll's books who asked a riddle, and when Alice said that she gave up, replied, "I only think of the questions--not the answers". But, of course, the right honourable gentleman was wrong anyway. The Secretary of State for the Environment already prepares
strategic planning guidance for London, published in May last year, to set a planning framework within which individual authorities can draw up their own development plans and make local planning decisions. In that role, the Secretary of State has regard to the advice produced by the London Planning Advisory Committee, which was set up as a committee of all the London boroughs. The Secretary of State also consults London directly about the guidance. The process is open, and rightly the subject of public debate. It is generally agreed to have worked well. The wider perspective of government enabled the Secretary of State to publish last week strategic guidance for much of the Thames stretching from Windsor to the sea. This is important: London is part of the South East and strategic issues such as the Thames, transport and planning need to be looked at over a much wider area than the old GLC boundary. Other issues occupy a more limited area--three or four boroughs make up "theatreland", for example. The present voluntary arrangements allow for flexibility.Although the noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, suggested that we need a strategic authority only to deal with transport and planning matters, it is difficult to see how a strategic authority could do more than that. My noble friend Lady Brigstocke said that there is a lack of co-ordination in terms of transport, but there is a formal consultation structure with local government, providers and users. Here, the Minister for Transport in London has published a transport strategy for London and there is widespread acceptance of the strategy.
Although we believe that the co-ordination of the provision of transport services is vital, we do not think that that can be imposed from above. The Government also believe that responsibility for designing solutions to local transport problems should rest with the boroughs and that they in turn need to involve local communities and businesses much more actively in debating such issues.
Voluntary partnership has helped to deliver major benefits for Londoners; for example, all 33 London boroughs are co-operating, together with government to deliver the 1,200 mile London cycle network. Of course, when it comes to major infrastructure projects, such as the Channel Tunnel rail link, central government have, and always will have, a major role to play, given the strategic importance of such projects, and the implications for public finances.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Bowness that that would be the case even if responsibility for delivering major projects were to fall to a local or regional authority. No government can afford to hand over to any form of local government the final word on major investment or policy decisions which have implications for the nation as a whole, and a regional strategic authority would not add anything to this process, other than cost and delay. I would remind your Lordships that a substantial portion of the country's transport budget is already spent in London. Would any government allow decisions on such vast sums of money to be taken without their consent? And if the authority cannot take decisions, why have it at all?
Of course, most people want to see ever more investment in public transport in the capital--and the Government recognise that an efficient transport system is essential to maintaining London's position as a great commercial, financial and cultural centre. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport yesterday announced the privatisation of London Underground. Unlike the party opposite and sections of the press, the Government have had to make the hard decisions about how much the nation as a whole can afford to invest in London. That announcement will ensure that London Underground can find the money it needs without competing with education or hospitals. Wholly new investment will be available to put into the infrastructure.
I listened with great interest to all noble Lords who have spoken, but particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, as he set out the policies of the party opposite. I congratulate him on his efforts because I do not believe that that is a particularly easy task. Indeed, it is still not entirely clear what it is that the Labour Party wants to impose on Londoners. Is it an assembly? Is it a strategic authority? Is it a GLC mark II? Is it a mayor? I was interested when he said that the leader of his party says so, but that has not yet been confirmed. In a way, it depends on what one reads--the party's official consultation paper or its unattributed briefings to the Evening Standard. It also depends on who you ask--Mr Dobson or Mr Blair.
However, one thing is clear: the Labour Party would burden Londoners with a new London tax; it would lead to slower decision making, eroding London's competitive position, and it would destroy the culture of partnership. I cannot accept what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said when replying on behalf of the Opposition--that it would cost very little and be slimline. Like Topsy, it would grow and if Labour councils around the country are anything to go by, I do not think that such a body would achieve what the noble Lord has suggested.
The public do not want more bureaucrats, bigger bills and slower decisions. What they want is local government that works with the private sector and adopts private sector standards of efficiency and customer service--the sort of service that London has benefited from in the past 10 years. The lesson of London during the 1980s and earlier--and not even the noble Lords opposite will deny it--was too much government--too much government, too much waste and too much bureaucracy.
I should like your Lordships to consider the following scenario of a London-wide authority setting out strategies for such diverse matters as the design of furnishings to meet the needs of cleaners, a national minimum wage, setting up democratically controlled nurseries--
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